Epic

Yo soy Luis

Surviving in a world that wears me down.

I am not an Aztec warrior or a Mayan prince.

I will not romanticize my mestizoness

invoking Gods who may or not govern my blood.

I am the colonizer and the colonized

And something different altogether.

I am the white child of my brown mother

who never envisioned her blond haired daughter

growing into her only son.

I am part of the chisme whispered at family gatherings

“Ay, did you hear about Maria Luisa’s youngest?”

I am la chingada, betraying the assimilation of my family

While also betraying the gender and the dreams everyone had for me.

Yo soy Luis

I am not the images of Chicanismo heroes

Whose hyper-masculinity

Is not reflected in my trans Latino faggotry

I am not the eagle striking the serpent biting the eagle.

I am the forked tongue between the two.

And like quetzacoatl, this forked tongue is surrounded by boas.

Yo soy Luis

I am the third generation Mexican,

the native child to this land,

and the white European.

I am like a nopal in a stripmall.

My flores are covered with glitter

As “American” as apple pie and colonized minds.

I am the product of bootstrap ideology:

Mija, if you just work hard enough

translation:

If you just marry white enough

if you just look light enough

You can do real well for yourself.

Yo soy Luis

La revolucion esta en mi sangre

And in my very existence

UFW protests that ended with my mother in the arms

Of a white man.

In the stories of my abuelito

where he rode with Pancho Villa

because everybody’s abuelitos rode with Pancho Villa.

I have been the bloody revolution

Staining my chones

With a body that rebelled against my desires.

With a body that never felt mine

after so many people took what they wanted from it.

Raised by a mujerista who knew that story all too well.

I imagine her feeling so small as her hermano

Would slip into her room the nights my abuelita stayed late at the cannery

My abuelito already spending his paycheck on brandy and craps.

Pero do not betray la raza, chingada.

No digas a nadie.

Don’t tell anyone.

Like my mama, I too am a survivor

I survived her for all those years

She took her anger out on me.

I survived me for all the years

I internalized my abuse.

I survived the neighbor next door,

Sticking her dirty fingers inside my 4 year old girl underwear

And the best friend in college who raped me.

After all of the abuse I experienced with women

I still love and honor them.

I still call my mama every day.

Because what it means for me to be a queer trans chicano

Is not letting go of the mujeres in my life.

Queer trans Chicanismo is about reclaiming la chingada

Screaming con la llorona about the loss of the little girl I used to be, the loss of my little girl innocence to other women who were supposed to be safe.

Yo soy Luis

Un queer trans biracial Chicano

Who finds his home not in Aztlan

But in the smell of Chanel number 5

In the bodies of the people who violated me

In the brown skin of the virgen who saved me

In the faith that tells me I’m an aberration

And in myself for still believing I am worth coming home to.